inne would have invented this natural behaviour if she were
not already accustomed to it. The dress she had chosen for the ball was
elegant and light; her hair was gathered up in a fillet of silk, after
the Italian fashion; and her eyes expressed a lively pleasure, which
rendered her more seductive than ever. Oswald was disturbed at this; he
warred against himself; he was indignant at being captivated with charms
which he ought to lament, since, far from thinking to please him, it was
to escape his empire that Corinne appeared so attractive.--But who could
resist the seductions of a grace like hers? Were she even disdainful,
she would be still more omnipotent; and that certainly was not the
disposition of Corinne. She perceived Lord Nelville, and blushed, while
there was in her eyes as she looked upon him, a most enchanting
softness.

The Prince d'Amalfi accompanied himself, in dancing, with castanets.
Corinne before she began saluted the assembly most gracefully with both
her hands, then turning round upon her heel took the tambourine which
the Prince Amalfi presented her with. She then began to dance, striking
the air upon the tambourine, and there was in all her motions, an
agility, a grace, a mixture of modesty and voluptuousness, which might
give an idea of that power which the Bayadores exercise over the
imagination of the Indians, when, if we may use the expression, they are
almost poets in their dance; when they express so many different
sentiments by the characteristic steps and the enchanting pictures which
they offer to the sight. Corinne was so well acquainted with all the
attitudes which the ancient painters and sculptors have represented,
that by a light movement of her arms, sometimes in placing the
tambourine over her head, sometimes forward, with one of her hands,
whilst the other ran over the little bells with an incredible dexterity,
she recalled to mind the dancers of Herculaneam[20], and gave birth
successively to a crowd of new ideas for painting and design.

It was not the French style, characterised by the elegance and
difficulty of the step; it was a talent more connected with imagination
and sentiment. The character of the music was alternately expressed by
the exactitude and softness of the movements. Corinne, in dancing,
conveyed to the souls of her spectators what was passing in her own. The
same as in her improvisation, her performance on the lyre, or the
efforts of her pencil,--she reduce